


I Think I've Broken Something

by Kira_Dattei



Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [12]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Immortal Found Family, Introspection, M/M, No Booker Bashing, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27520690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kira_Dattei/pseuds/Kira_Dattei
Summary: Two days is too soon for Joe to expect to understand what Booker did but that doesn’t mean it isn’t all he’s thinking about.Prompt: Broken Trust
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: The Old Guard Whumptober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994617
Kudos: 54





	I Think I've Broken Something

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a whump writer so I can't promise a huge amount of whump in all of these. I just picked the prompt from each day that actually sparked an idea and ran with it.  
> I'm mostly using these as a way to get a feel for the characters and I simply love the relationships given in canon and wanted to explore them.  
> Joe is the lucky whumpee for most of these because I just love him.
> 
> These are all going to be one-shots and they are as connected as you want them to be so you’re good to just read one and not worry about missing anything.

In a decision based solely on Nile being right and Andy being so sore and in pain the next day that once they finished speaking with Copley, Nicky declared that they would take the risk of remaining near to London so that Andy could heal before they moved on.

Copley offered they take his guest rooms and Nicky accepted before Andy could say anything and while she gave him a glare she didn’t actually refute him or just order them all to leave, which they would listen to because she was Andy and they respected her too much to ignore her if she truly believed the best choice would be to leave.

And while Copley’s home had two guest rooms, all four of them gathered into the same one, not even Nile seeming surprised. So, she and Andy shared the bed while Joe and Nicky took the floor at the foot of the bed, placing themselves between the door and the weakened Andy.

They were on their second night there and again Joe was only able to sleep uneasily for about an hour before he was awake again. The night before, he had remained in his place and ensured his family remained safe in a manner he wasn’t usually responsible for as he slept too deeply. It was usually Nicky who guarded them at night unless a mission dictated otherwise.

This night, he decided not to remain. His mind was calmer than it had been the night before and he would have more difficulty keeping still enough that he didn’t disturb Nicky, light sleeper that he was even when at his most relaxed.

Joe sat up slowly and Nicky’s grip immediately tightened on his arm. He leaned forward to kiss Nicky’s temple and whisper Arabic endearments to him until he relaxed back to sleep, his grip loosening and Joe managed to move the rest of the way out from behind Nicky and left the room in slow, silent, practiced motions. He’d learned long ago how to leave a room without waking any of his companions and he wasn’t worried about Nile being easy to wake up just yet.

He headed for the kitchen, pulling out some of the leftover takeout they’d had for dinner and managing to eat a few bites before he realized that he wasn’t interested in food. He put it away and then wandered around the house aimlessly, avoiding passing too closely to either of the bedrooms.

He eventually made his way to the office where Copley still had the wall of pictures, articles, and at least a partial history of them.

Which was more than anyone else had.

Joe had been fascinated by how much Copley had assembled of them. And Joe believed the man when he’d said he had done it all alone. The man was intelligent enough and had the resources even after leaving the CIA, as was obvious by how he had managed to become involved with Merrick.

He had never imagined that all that they had done, what was on this wall nothing close to how much they had been involved with, would have made such a difference to so much, to so many. As Nicky had told Nile, they did what they believed was best, nothing more.

He reached out and traced his fingers down a rough photo of him taken sometime during World War II. He recalled that being a dark time for all of them, just as the first World War had been. But here was a picture of him connected to the story of someone he’d helped growing up to do something good for others.

Was the good they did like a ripple? Their actions made a difference in ways they couldn’t anticipate.

What if what they’d done was wrong? What about their bad decisions? They couldn’t only have made the right choices.

A picture of Booker was just barely to his right and he focused on it, the picture clearer than most of the ones of him.

“How will this affect what happens?” he asked the picture, speaking French almost out of habit.

Booker had learned the least languages of them all. And many that he did decide to learn he only reached the skill level to be passably proficient. They had used that to their advantage before, sending him and his genuine faltering of speaking a language to put a target at ease. And when he joined them, of course they all had already been fluent in French for much longer than the man had been alive and so it was common for them to settle into French whenever he was around. It helped that both Joe and Nicky enjoyed the language.

It was the easiest way to tease the man for Joe, to speak in his native tongue as Booker had been adamant that he would never learn it. Joe would speak at length in Arabic while cooking with Booker in the room, either telling a story of his life or complimenting the man, content to be kind to his brother in a manner that he would know if he had but learned Joe’s language.

Joe’s hands clenched at his side. Had Booker assumed he was speaking ill of him, taking advantage of his lack of understanding? He had thought he’d only seen good-natured irritation in Booker, that Booker had understood that he would never speak poorly of him in a manner that wasn’t understood. If there was an action or words Booker had said that Joe found fault with, he made sure he told him so honestly and directly and always in a language he spoke fluently.

He thought that had been understood.

Joe would forgive what Booker had done, he knew. He knew himself well enough to be confident in that. But he also knew that he was unlikely to be able to accept anything from Booker at face value for a long time. Booker had a hundred years to figure himself out. If he accomplished that much, then he could begin working at becoming one they could again trust.

Joe was certain that no one who had broken his trust had regained it.

He wondered if that was one of the disadvantages of their immortality: knowing they had the time they did meant they held onto things most people would let go simply because life was short for them.

Joe took a few steps away from the wall, looking at more of it at once, seeing more of their existence.

It wasn’t enough, he decided as he turned away.

This was only one side of their existence. Nothing here would explain why Booker had fallen to such deep despair because this wall only had what they did for others. It had nothing of what they did for each other or what they had come from. It obviously wasn’t from lack of effort as there was a birth record for who Copley had thought may possibly be Booker but only the name and year was correct, not the day or location. And those records weren’t kept back when the rest of them had been born.

Copley wouldn’t have found anything of Yusuf Al-Kaysani or Nicolo de Genova. Not Quynh or Lykon either. The closest he had for Andy was the legend she had left behind, nothing from before she became immortal. Andy and Booker’s real names were the only ones that appeared on the wall. And it was likely that Booker had told Copley his name and that was how he had it.

But it was in their real names that the truth of Booker’s choice would be found. It wasn’t in these fake identities that they gave the world, carefully designed to disappear and escape notice.

He placed his hands on the desk and relaxed his weight onto them as he took in a deep breath. He was becoming irritated and he didn’t want to destroy this wall. The sound would startle the rest of them into seeking out the cause with weapons drawn and he was hoping to have a few weeks pass at least before he died next. And he didn’t want all this proof of the kind of people they were to be damaged, especially not by his own hands.

Over nine hundred years old and he had no idea how to handle what Booker had done. And he knew that he would need to step up, be ready to be responsible for making more decisions as Andy aged and gained injuries that would permanently affect her ability to continue taking missions. And one day soon, she would die and he along with Nicky would be the oldest of them.

Unless Quynh managed to free herself from her coffin and even then with how Nile had described the impressions she had experienced from Quynh, would she even want to go back to helping others as Joe and Nicky would continue to do?

This was not helping him become less irritated, he interrupted his own thought process to acknowledge.

Booker had accused Joe and Nicky of not understanding his loneliness because they had always been together.

Joe hadn’t known what to think when he’d said that but now that he was thinking about it, he realized there was nothing he could say that Booker would have heard. And perhaps nothing they tried to say to him would be heard until they saw him again.

What would Joe be without Nicky? It was unimaginable as it had never been once they had taken the other from their mortal life.

Nicky generally didn’t like who he had been, Joe knew. He had family that he’d loved dearly, parents and a brother that had still been alive when Nicky had joined the church and then left for the war. When Nicky found reason to remind Joe of what he meant to him, he always said that everything good in him had only been allowed to thrive because of Joe.

Joe had been alone for many years before his death. His mother had died when he was young and his father had been killed shortly after Joe entered his nineteenth year. His father’s death had been why Joe had learned to fight and what had set him on the life that led him to Nicky’s blade. And there were times when Joe would recall the utter loneliness he felt before his first death and then the subsequent years traveling with Nicky before they actually trusted each other.

And once he had given Nicolo his trust, it had never been broken, even before they grew to love one another.

Andy had never broken his trust, had always been willing to offer him guidance. And while she wasn’t always right she would at least always try.

Quynh had never betrayed his trust, ever ready to be a kind ear to speak to. Much of the patience he had learned he attributed to her influence. She had done what she could to show him how to think through his actions and while he would always be one to rush through emotions, he had learned how to push them away when it was truly not the time for reactions. She was why Andy or Nicky could call his name once and he could push away his reactions for the moment so quickly.

But Booker…Booker had been the first of them to betray the others. He had been the first to betray Joe’s trust.

There was not much in the world Joe could claim to be experiencing for the first time and he wished this one had remained one he’d never known.

He didn’t want Booker to have felt that he had no choice but to seek death. He didn’t want to feel like Booker did not deserve to be thought of as his “brother” and yet there was a part of him that couldn’t stop the thought.

One day didn’t erase two hundred years of being Joe’s family.

And perhaps that was the right answer to Booker’s accusation when the century was up. Maybe the answer he could finally give him was that it wasn’t just Nicky who made Joe who he was, who made him whole. It was his entire family, the only one that he’d had since long before he died. He wasn’t the same person without Nicky, Andy, Quynh, Booker, and now Nile.

He’d changed when Quynh had been lost.

He would change over the next few years as Nile became one of them.

He would change when Andy died.

He would change in the time Booker was parted from them.

He would likely become unrecognizable if Nicky were to die and leave him in this world.

All he could do was try his best to remain someone he wanted to be, someone who deserved this time they were given without choice. What would be the point if he had to live potentially thousands of years and not be able to tolerate himself?

He stood upright and turned back to the wall, his eyes slowly passing over each article, picture, and handwritten note.

He looked over his shoulder to the desk and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen before writing “ _Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Mohammed ibn Al-Kaysani”_ in Arabic. He walked over to the wall and grabbed an unused thumbtack and stuck the paper to the board, mixed in among other handwritten notes.

Now Copley could have at least one thing on this wall that was of the side of their lives that truly mattered. It wasn’t as though having Joe’s real name would truly make a difference to what Copley could find of him. Between Joe’s family was the only place his real name existed. And Copley was one they were going to have to come to trust to some extent and they didn’t have the leisure of time when it came to the man. He would die, possibly before Andy, and they would need to be comfortable working with the information he provided.

Joe felt as though too much was changing in a very short period of time and he would likely continue to struggle for a long time.

He stayed in that office for the rest of the night, startling Copley when the man woke up and walked by.

Joe had laughed at the man’s expression, the first laugh he had given in the past two days and he felt that perhaps he would at least be able to show what his family knew of him as he settled into who he would become. And he would do all he could to make sure it was someone he enjoyed being.

He couldn’t break the trust anyone had in him because now he knew from experience how shitty that felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you liked it. 
> 
> Booker makes for a fascinating character study, just as all of these guys do. He done royally messed up but the fact that all his actions can be traced to an inability to cope and move on from grief and I can imagine how spending two hundred years in grief can really mess someone up. Living longer doesn't make them any less human or less likely to make mistakes and I like that approach to his character. I can't wait for the second movie to see how things progress.


End file.
